Identity Unknown
Cast & Crew
Walter Colmes
Richard Arlen
Cheryl Walker
Roger Pryor
Bobby Driscoll
Lola Lane
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
While sailing for home, Major Williams tells an amnesiac soldier on the boat how he was wounded: He was one of four soldiers trapped in a farmhouse, which was subsequently bombed by a Nazi aircraft. He was the only survivor, and his identity could not be determined as all four men's dog tags were blown off their bodies but were later found in the rubble. Williams gives the soldier, who names himself Johnny March, the names and addresses of each man. When the boat lands, Johnny takes a train headed to the Army hospital but jumps off at the Connecticut town of one of the men, Paul "Mac" MacGregor, causing the military police to assume he has gone AWOL. Johnny visits Mac's home but Mac's widow Sally fails to recognize him. He pretends to be Mac's friend so Sally will invite him to stay, and they quickly form a romantic attachment. Later that night, after Johnny convinces Sally to try to stop mourning, she realizes he did not know Mac and she becomes angry. She softens when he explains his story, and they kiss before he leaves the next day. Johnny then goes to the home of Joseph Loring in West Virginia. There a boy named Toddy answers the door and embraces Johnny as his father. He soon tells Johnny, however, that he cannot remember his father, and when his babysitter comes home and demands to know who Johnny is, he realizes he is not Joseph Loring. Johnny explains to Toddy that the boy must be a strong soldier for his mother, and then leaves for Carl Granowski's home in Chicago. There he finds Carl's brother Joe working for a bookie named Frankie in a gambling house, and as soon as he arrives, gangster Rocks Donnelly comes in and demands $6,000. Joe explains that he stole the money Rocks had given him to place on a bet, and just as Rocks and Frankie begin threatening Joe, a rival gangster bursts in. Joe shouts a warning to Rocks and takes two bullets himself. At the hospital, the thankful gangster offers to take the recovering young man into his gang, but when Johnny explains that Joe wants to be a doctor like his older brother, Rocks offers to pay for medical school instead. At Rocks' party that night, Johnny meets Wanda, a kindly woman who recognizes that he is in love with someone else. At her urging, he calls Sally, who says she will wait for him to discover his identity and then come to him. He travels to the Iowa home of the last name on his list, Peter Anderson, but again Peter's parents do not know who he is. Johnny discovers that the father, Amos, is so brokenhearted about losing his son that he is auctioning off the farm. When the day of the auction arrives, however, Amos and his wife realize they have made a mistake, and Johnny explains to the potential buyers that they must not take away the Andersons' only happy memories. As the buyers leave, Sally calls to tell him she is at the train station. He speeds over, attracting the attention of the military police, who arrest him for being AWOL. Soon after, the Army discovers Johnny's true identity. To help him remember for himself, they ask him questions that cause him to recall that he is Captain Charles Aldridge. Major Williams informs him that he was performing a heroic mission to drop supplies to the four trapped soldiers when the enemy started bombing the farmhouse, and as he and Sally leave together, the major tells the attending psychiatrist that Charles is part of all the families he has visited and all the lost soldiers for whose principles he stands.
Director
Walter Colmes
Cast
Richard Arlen
Cheryl Walker
Roger Pryor
Bobby Driscoll
Lola Lane
Ian Keith
John Forrest
Sarah Padden
Forrest Taylor
Frank Marlowe
Harry Tyler
Nelson Leigh
Charles Williams
Charles Jordan
Dick Scott
Marjorie Manners
Eddie Baker
Crew
Al Bonner
Howard Bretherton
Bartlett A. Carré
Jay Chernis
Walter Colmes
M. E. M. Gibsone
Alec Law
John F. Link
Ernest Miller
Robert Newman
Ferol M. Redd
E. H. Reif
Richard Weil
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The working title of this film was Johnny March. A March 1948 Hollywood Reporter news item states that screenwriter Robert Newman was the assistant general manager of Republic and planned to novelize his original story. Modern sources credit Howard Sheehan as the film's executive producer.
